Though COVID-19 activity in the United States is still low, infections are on the rise in some parts of the country, including states in the Southeast, South, and West, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said today in its latest respiratory virus updates.

The upward trend is reflected mainly in early indicators, including emergency department visits for COVID, which are still very low nationally, at 0.5%. Visits were up 10.9% from the week before, with greater increases in children ages 4 years old and younger. Test positivity is also increasing slightly at the national level, now at 4.8%, up 1.1 percentage points from the previous week.

Wastewater detections climb in several states

Wastewater SARS-CoV-2 detections, another early marker, were at the very low level earlier this summer and are now at the low level, with the highest levels in the West, followed by the South. States at the high level include California, Florida, Hawaii, Louisiana, Nevada, South Carolina, and Texas.

The CDC has not updated its variant proportion projections since the middle of June, owing to few sequences reported. Its last update reflected growing proportions of newer subvariants that include NB.1.8.1 and XFG.